Designing prostitution policy by Wagenaar Hendrik Amesberger Helga

Author:Wagenaar, Hendrik, Amesberger, Helga [Wagenaar, Hendrik, Amesberger, Helga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Prostitution & Sex Trade
ISBN: 9781447324263
Google: sQVpDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2017-04-26T04:29:51+00:00

FOUR

The national governance of prostitution: political rationality and the politics of discourse

Introduction: policy subsystems and policy streams

In the policy literature, policy formulation, the emergence of policy agendas and the introduction of legislation are associated less with a particular identifiable phase of the policy process than with policy institutions and policy networks. Groups of organisations and individuals organise around a specific social issue to discuss solutions, ideas and political strategy. The formal arrangements of government – cabinets (working with ministries), legislatures – then make, or block, decisions. Policy networks are made up of members from government and civil society. They can, for example, include members of parliament, high-ranking civil servants and experts from municipal agencies on the one hand, and lobbyists, academic experts, NGOs and members of the target group on the other. What unites these groups is an interest in the issue at hand, expertise, resources and trust. Some actors in the groups harbour resources, such as money, information, influence, decision-making power or legitimacy, that the other actors need. When such groups are in operation long enough, its members develop mutual trust, sometimes even friendships, despite the fact that they might disagree with each other’s position on the issue. Policy networks may be open, loose and shifting (whence they are called issue networks) or stable and with restricted membership (whence they are called policy communities) (Rhodes, 1996). The policy network around prostitution in the Netherlands always had the more open character of an issue network with different actors being admitted when other members feel that these have a contribution to make. Some authors argue that each policy sector is characterised by a particular policymaking style that is itself explained by the nature of the policy network that is active in that sector. Such networks are then called ‘policy subsystems’ (Howlett and Ramesh, 2003). It is difficult though to disentangle cause and effect here. Are policy styles the result of the composition and operating style of a network or has the network adapted to the nature of the social issue and imparted a certain style to the issue at hand? Designing industrial or health policy is very different from dealing with a moral issue such as prostitution policy.

In the sequential stage model of policymaking, policy formulation is usually framed in terms of the decisions that the legislature and the executive make. This image of policy formulation nicely fits with our image of how electoral democracy works. As John summarises it: ‘Policy emerges from the will of the people; constitutional checks and balances modify political decisions; and groups and experts seek to have an influence at the formulation and implementation stages’ (2012, p 18). Nowadays the consensus in the literature is that legislative or executive decisions are a provisional moment of desistance in a more unruly process of issue formulation and agenda setting, and, as we saw in the preceding chapter, policy implementation. Policy problems, no matter how apparently urgent, are not indubitable but constructed. In any policy sector an assembly of

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